Dow, EPA agree on plan to clean up 11 homes on Riverside Drive in Saginaw

by Justin Engel | The Saginaw News

Tuesday July 15, 2008, 6:13 PM

Within weeks, officials at Midland's Dow Chemical Co. hope to begin cleanup of a riverside Saginaw neighborhood that showed "uncharacteristically high levels" of dioxin contamination.

Dow and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which conducted tests in April that revealed the contamination, finalized a remediation plan today that involves soil excavation, topsoil replacement and interior home clean-ups of 11 residential properties on Riverside Drive, a private road straddling the Tittabawassee River.

John C. Musser, Dow spokesman, said the next step involves getting access agreements from the homeowners.

He expects crews to finish the work by mid-October.

EPA-sponsored crews took 1,300 soil samples in the region during the spring, Musser said, and tests revealed an average contamination of 1,400 parts per trillion. Michigan's state average for dioxin in soil is 7 parts per trillion.

One Saginaw sample showed levels reaching 20,000 parts per trillion, Musser said.

For additional articles like this one, go to the Tittabawassee River Watch web site www.trwnews.net for complete coverage of the Tittabawassee River Dow Chemical dioxin contamination saga. . The Newspaper / Media page of our site contains an extensive archive of media articles dating back to January 2002. The source organization's web site link is listed to the right of the article, visit often for other news in our area. The Newspaper / Media page may be accessed by scrolling down to the bottom of the CONTENTS section and clicking on the Newspaper/Media link.